Why are we humans? Have you ever
thought of this question? You may think we are humans because we can walk
upright on two legs rather than on four legs. In this way we have two free
hands so that we can carry and use tools. And you may think we are humans
because we are intelligent, we have consciousness, and we can speak languages.
However these are characteristics of humans not the reasons for why we are
humans.
If you have heard
Charles Darwin’s “natural selection,” “the struggle of life”, and “the struggle
for existence”, you may think we are humans because in our prelife, we fought
with pigs, cows, cats, dogs, lions etc, we beat them, we were winner so that we
are humans. However that is not true, there is no theory or evidence to support
such an idea that we had ever engaged in battles with animals before our birth.
If you are a Christian
or a believer of other religions, you may think we are humans because of God’s
grace. You are right if you see this question from the angle of religion.
However, from a
scientific view, the answer to this question: why we are humans is actually
very simple. We are humans because our parents are humans.
Why a pig is a pig? It
is not because it was a loser, or because it is stupid or immoral; it is
because its parents are pigs. If you plant a seed of apple, you can expect it to
grow into an apple tree, develop apple flowers and produce the fruits of apple.
The phenomenon that an offspring resembles its parents is called heredity. The
study of heredity is called Genetics.
The next question
following up is why our parents are humans then we are humans. Or how does the
heredity happen? This is because our parents passed the information of humans
to us. Based on that information we developed into humans. How did our parents
do that? They passed the information of humans to us through sperms and ova.
Every Human is developed from a single fertilized ovum.
A single fertilized
ovum is about 0.1 millimeter and is hardly visible to naked eyes. Can you
imagine how much information is needed to develop a human? But all these
information is stored in the single cell.
Then you may ask what
component of the cell that carries the genetic information. That component is called
DNA. DNA is a chemical compound, a large molecule in the cell. Genetic
information exists in sequences of DNA.
I don’t know how you
feel when you think you are a human. But I always feel how wonderful it is and
how lucky I am. We didn’t do anything to be humans! It is heredity that makes
us humans. This is like a free gift. Isn’t it amazing!
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The above is one of
5-7 minute speeches I delivered in my Toastmaster Club.
